Snowden To The World: Stop Letting Facebook Control Your News

In an attempt to rationalize the fact that Donald Trump has been elected as the next president of the United States, a growing movement is lashing outagainst “fake news sites,” even labeling them responsible for the election results.

Earlier this week, a document “False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and/or Satirical ‘News’ Sources” was uploaded to Facebook by a user named Melissa Zimdars. The document made the rounds on social media, adding fuel to the fake news fire. Despite the fact that Zimdars’ list ironically lacks proper citation, blatantly targets right-wing outlets, and includes perfectly legitimate sites for no apparent reason, the Los Angeles Timespublished the false, misleading, clickbait-y document, lending it an air of legitimacy.

The irony in the assistant professor’s project is that it mirrors everything she is warning others about. Although it is prefaced with a disclaimer, the document is being shared by “legitimate” news outlets as a legitimate report. Some of it is true and some of it is cited, but overall, it’s a poor resource to rely on for guidance on reputable news outlets. It almost makes one wonder if this young teacher is conducting her own social experiment to see how seriously people will take a Google document uploaded to Facebook.